You don’t hear much about the science of ergonomics in watchmaking. The fundamentals of keeping the time on our wrists have been established for so long – at least a century – that you wonder what ergonomic advancement could even mean. A more comfortable strap?
Audemars Piguet’s latest technological showcase, the Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ Extra-Thin Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon Chronograph RD#5, is impressive in a number of ways (for starters, it fits an automatic chronograph and a tourbillon into the 39mm-wide case of the classic Royal Oak) but Audemars Piguet claims it’s the ergonomics that are really notable.
It has developed the entire movement around being easier to use, and the fact that this doesn’t look like a wildly advanced concept watch is part of the point; deceptive complexity is the name of the game.
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Most chronographs rely on an architecture that hasn’t changed in decades. There are variations – you’ll hear makers talk about things such as ‘column wheels’ and ‘vertical clutches,’ which do make them smoother to operate – but the basics are, well, a bit basic.
Audemars Piguet has completely overhauled the mechanism that links the button you press with the hands counting the seconds, minutes and hours, with the result that you can start, stop and re-set the RD#5 with about a fifth of the force.
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In turn, that means the pusher can travel a much shorter distance, making it much sleeker and more discreet. So you get a function that’s considerably easier to use while you’re actually wearing the watch, and a watch that looks a lot cooler than the standard Royal Oak chronograph. From some angles you barely notice the pushers at all.
The brand has also tweaked the way you set the time; instead of pulling out the crown and fiddling over multiple positions that you never get right the first time, you simply press a button in the center of the crown (also extremely soft and subtle). Perhaps surprisingly for a 150-year-old watchmaker, it benchmarked the feel against smartphone buttons.
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Audemars Piguet is targeting a new audience with RD#5.
The brand applied smartphone ergonomics to it's latest launch.
The RD#5;s entire movement was developed around being easy to use.
This might sound like sacrilege, but it shows the company is looking to the future in more ways than one – targeting an audience that wants high-end watchmaking but didn’t grow up with record players, manual gearboxes and landline phones.
Swiss brands are prone to assuming Gen-Z buyers need to be enticed with patronizing marketing campaigns and logo changes; this is a more serious effort to engage with the real world.
